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Originally known as Decoration Day, May 30 was established as a day to remember those who died in the American Civil War. After World War I, Memorial Day came to be the day we remember the American dead of all the wars our country has been involved in. In 1971, Congress established Memorial Day as a national holiday and changed its observance to the last Monday in May, resulting in a three-day holiday weekend.

Here are excerpts from sites with information about the history of Memorial Day.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Various Washington officials, including Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies. After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.

Local Observances Claim To Be First Local springtime tributes to the Civil War dead already had been held in various places. One of the first occurred in Columbus, Miss., April 25, 1866, when a group of women visited a cemetery to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen in battle at Shiloh. Nearby were the graves of Union soldiers, neglected because they were the enemy. Disturbed at the sight of the bare graves, the women placed some of their flowers on those graves, as well.

Today, cities in the North and the South claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day in 1866. Both Macon and Columbus, Ga., claim the title, as well as Richmond, Va. The village of Boalsburg, Pa., claims it began there two years earlier. A stone in a Carbondale, Ill., cemetery carries the statement that the first Decoration Day ceremony took place there on April 29, 1866. Carbondale was the wartime home of Gen. Logan. Approximately 25 places have been named in connection with the origin of Memorial Day, many of them in the South where most of the war dead were buried.

Official Birthplace Declared In 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, N.Y., the “birthplace” of Memorial Day. There, a ceremony on May 5, 1866, honored local veterans who had fought in the Civil War. Businesses closed and residents flew flags at half-staff. Supporters of Waterloo’s claim say earlier observances in other places were either informal, not community-wide or one-time events.

By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. State legislatures passed proclamations designating the day, and the Army and Navy adopted regulations for proper observance at their facilities.

It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May, as were some other federal holidays.

Some States Have Confederate Observances Many Southern states also have their own days for honoring the Confederate dead. Mississippi celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday of April, Alabama on the fourth Monday of April, and Georgia on April 26. North and South Carolina observe it on May 10, Louisiana on June 3 and Tennessee calls that date Confederate Decoration Day. Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day January 19 and Virginia calls the last Monday in May Confederate Memorial Day.

[…]

To ensure the sacrifices of America ’s fallen heroes are never forgotten, in December 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” P.L. 106-579, creating the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance. The commission’s charter is to “encourage the people of the United States to give something back to their country, which provides them so much freedom and opportunity” by encouraging and coordinating commemorations in the United States of Memorial Day and the National Moment of Remembrance.

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation. As Moment of Remembrance founder Carmella LaSpada states: “It’s a way we can all help put the memorial back in Memorial Day.”

Established by Congress in 1923, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) commemorates the service, achievements, and sacrifice of U.S. armed forces. ABMC manages 24 overseas military cemeteries, and 25 memorials, monuments, and markers. Nearly all the cemeteries and memorials specifically honor those who served in World War I or World War II.

The sacrifice of more than 218,000 U.S. servicemen and women is memorialized at these locations. Nearly 125,000 American war dead are buried at ABMC cemeteries, with an additional 94,000 individuals commemorated on Tablets of the Missing.

So on Memorial Day each year, we remember the men and women who died and were buried on American soil as well as on the battlefields of World War II, the Korean War, and the Mexican War. Most of our soldiers from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq have been brought home to be buried.

We owe a great debt to our fallen heroes for defending our homeland and fighting for our liberties. May we never forget the sacrifices they have made for us.

As if the farcical movie ‘Game Change’ wasn’t itself full of enough lies, producer Danny Strong just made this patently false statement (emphasis mine):

The film’s producers, director Jay Roach, and Strong were prepared for an outcry from conservatives, but it didn’t really materialize. He said, “It was an extremely minimal conservative backlash. The only backlash was amongst Sarah Palin’s aides, and those are people who are on Sarah Palin’s payroll. As far as the mainstream conservative press – the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, Fox News – I felt that there was very little backlash to the film, and I think part of that was because of how fair the film was and how the film went to great pains to show you Sarah Palin’s point of view and John McCain’s point of view.”

Contrary to Strong’s prevarication, there was a very strong conservative backlash to the ‘Game Change’ movie. For example, John McCain told FOX News Sunday that he would not watch the movie and that “It’s based on a book that’s completely biased and with unattributed quotes, et cetera.” In his Wall Street Journal article this week about the vice presidential vetting process, A. B. Culverhouse, the DC attorney who was in charge of vetting Sarah Palin, described the movie as “the revisionist HBO movie about that campaign” . Governor Palin herself referred to the movie as a false narrative. After the U. S. Embassy in Singapore screened ‘Game Change,’ SarahPAC sent the Ambassador a copy of ‘The Undefeated’. The PAC also posted a statement criticizing the movie. The Maryland4Palin unit of Organize4Palin handed out playbills branding the movie as a false narrative to attendees as they arrived for the DC premiere of ‘Game Change’. And yes, several of Governor Palin’s aides did make public statements about the inaccuracies in the movie and also engaged in a conference call condemning the movie.

Mark Levin condemned Schmidt and Wallace as evil two-faced cowards – The Right Scoop has the video here. Rush Limbaugh described it as a “cartoon” and said it was part of the Democrat Party’s war on women. See also his discussion of the movie while it was still in the works. Glenn Beck (video here) said that the movie producers were likely attacking Governor Palin’s credibility to prevent her from running for office again. Stephen Bannon’s Victory Films contracted with the Reelz Channel to air ‘The Undefeated’ the same weekend as the premiere of the ‘Game Change’ movie.

P.S. Our victory in 2010 may have slowed the Obama liberals down. But it hasn’t stopped them. Our chance to finish the job is finally here. We have our work cut out for us – but together we can make it happen!

Paid for by SarahPAC
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committeewww.SarahPAC.com

There was a fast and furious response by the Left to Bristol Palin’s blog post in which she expressed her disagreement with President Obama’s stance on gay marriage and emphasized the double standard applied to the manner in which he claimed to have arrived at his decision.

Blog posts critical of Bristol’s statements flooded the Internet. Bristol was attacked on Twitter and in the comments section on her blog. Death threats were posted in comments on her blog and on Twitter. Michael Sheppard and Jackie Siciliano exposed one such perpetrator of hate, a college student who supports Obama, here and here. John Nolte wrote here about violence against Bristol being promoted on the Facebook page of Magnet Releasing, a film company owned by Obama supporter Mark Cuban. Tony Lee wrote here about the Hollywood intolerance reflected in Bristol’s hate mail.

This was an obvious effort to overwhelm and silence a dissenting viewpoint from that of the Left and their Dear Leader. It appears that only the Left has First Amendment rights in this country. At least, that is what they would have us believe. However, the last time I looked, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were still the Law of the Land. And may they ever remain so.

We at SPIB would like to give Bristol a shout out for the courage and strength she has displayed in the face of these attacks. We stand in solidarity with her in support of the moral principles that made our country great.

“It’s interesting, some of this is also generational,” the president continued. “You know when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same-sex equality or, you know, sexual orientation, that they believe in equality. They are much more comfortable with it. You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and, frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”

Let’s pause for just one second. When Christian women run for high office, people inevitably bring up the question of submission. Once, Michele Bachmann, for example, was asked during a debate, “As president, would you be submissive to your husband?”

People automatically assume that a Christian female President isn’t capable of making decisions without her spouse’s stamp of approval. (I should add female Republicancandidates –liberal women don’t get the same kind of questions.)

[…]

So let me get this straight – it’s a problem if my mom listened too much to my dad, but it’s a heroic act if the President made a massive change in a policy position that could affect the entire nation after consulting with his teenage daughters?

While it’s great to listen to your kids’ ideas, there’s also a time when dads simply need to be dads. In this case, it would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage. Or that – as great as her friends may be – we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview.

[…]

Sometimes dads should lead their family in the right ways of thinking. In this case, it would’ve been nice if the President would’ve been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.

Hate in the Name of Love, Bullying in the Name of Tolerance

Well, I stirred up a hornet’s nest. You know you’ve struck a nerve when even J-Woww tweets insults at you. But the thing that most amazes me is how few people actually addressed the points I made in my recent blog post. They were pretty simple. Conservative women like my mom get grief because people think they can’t make decisions without their husband, but Barack Obama gets applauded for changing his mind on a huge issue after consulting his wife and young daughters. The double standard amazes me.

Oh, and in that post I also said generally kids do better with mother/father families – the kind of family I’d like to have for Tripp one day.

That’s it. That’s pretty much the post. (Yes, I made a little joke about Swiper the Fox, but anyone with a brain would know that wasn’t serious.) You see arguments like that all the time in political magazines. It’s not a big deal, and the people who make arguments like that don’t stir up much controversy.

But I’m not a pundit. I’m just a mom made famous in one of the most intense and embarrassing ways possible – by having your teen pregnancy announced in the middle of a presidential campaign. Oh, and I was a finalist on Dancing with the Stars, one of the most-watched shows on TV. But all that means I’m more a part of pop culture, the culture that creates the television we watch and the music we listen to. When real pundits write blog posts, they don’t pop up in Us Weekly… but mine do.

And I’m glad. Why? Because pop culture needs a little bit of debate. It needs a little bit of disagreement. Because not everyone who watches their shows or listens to their music thinks the way the directors, producers, and actors think. When you’re in Hollywood you’ll meet some great people, some terrible people, and many somewhere in between. In other words, they’re people just like everyone else. But what you won’t find is any disagreement about things like gay marriage or abortion. For those folks, there’s one way to think, and anyone who disagrees is stupid, hypocritical, hateful, or bigoted. (Of course, I’m not the only one facing the wrath of the Hollywood-type sheeple – there are some celebrities bold enough to speak out, and they get attacked and ostracized too.)

If you read the almost 3,000 comments after my controversial post, or read the entertainment magazines, you’ll see some of the most terrible words against me, my mom, and my entire family.

Deb Fischer for Nebraska

Tomorrow voters go to the polls in Nebraska. Please remember to vote for Deb Fischer as the next U.S. Senator from the Cornhusker State. Todd and I sent Deb the following note last week:

Deb – thank you for your note. We have been watching your race closely. Your efforts remind us of those our family put forth for Sarah’s races here in Alaska. Winning over voters through personal interactions is the way to go. People are tired of outside interests spending millions of dollars in political attack ads. We’re glad to see your grassroots efforts paying off!

We admire your conservative principles and know that you will not go to Washington to amass great wealth or power. You will go to Washington to serve the people of Nebraska, protect our Constitution and work for common sense solutions to help restore America. We are happy to support you and have asked SarahPAC to send a financial contribution to your campaign.

Ted Cruz for Texas

Early voting begins today in the Texas primary. Please remember to vote for Ted Cruz as the next U.S. Senator from the Lone Star State. Todd and I sent the note below to Ted last week:

As the product of a competitive primary, I believe they make us all stronger for general elections. Our nation’s primaries are the hallmark of our system and the debate between candidates is invaluable to voters. Your good grassroots work and direct contact with voters will put us on the path to take back the Senate in 2012 just as we took back the House in 2010.

We’re proud to join conservatives in Texas and throughout the nation in supporting your campaign to become the next Senator from the Lone Star State. Your conservative principles, passionate defense of our Constitution and our free market system come at a time when these cornerstones of our freedom and prosperity are under attack.

Our shared goal isn’t just to change the majority in control of the Senate, but to assure principled conservatives like you are there to fight for us.

In her article at Yahoo News, Mary Rose Hartman has coined a new term for the surge in voter support seen after a Sarah Palin endorsement. Just as she did for Deb Fischer in Nebraska, Governor Palin endorsed Ted Cruz four days before the start of early voting. Both experienced the “Sarah Palin bounce,” as had Richard Mourdoch, who won his primary by a landslide after Governor Palin endorsed him as a Senate candidate.

Call it the Sarah Palin bounce: Hours after the 2008 vice presidential nominee endorsed Ted Cruz, a Republican candidate for U.S. senator from Texas, on Thursday morning, the staff at Cruz’s headquarters in Austin reported a swift and positive reaction.

“Phones are ringing, online contributions are pouring in, and supporters are more excited than ever on our social networks,” Drogin wrote, adding that he’s seen a “flood” of donations but has yet to tally them.

“Fantastic endorsement. Congratulations. I support Sarah Palin, and after a lot of research I can honestly say you’re the man for this job,” wrote Facebook user Charles Netterville. “Thank you for your willingness to help take on the establishment (Both sides) and return this great nation to its former glory.”

Your conservative principles, passionate defense of our Constitution and our free market system come at a time when these cornerstones of our freedom and prosperity are under attack. Our shared goal isn’t just to change the majority in control of the Senate, but to assure principled conservatives like you are there to fight for us.

Cruz, the former solicitor general of Texas and the first Hispanic to serve in that position, is one of nine Republicans running for their party’s nomination. (Current Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is retiring.)

Drogin noted the beneficial timing of Thursday’s endorsement: four days before early voting is set to begin in Texas.

Palin’s endorsement was a coveted prize in the 2010 election, when the former Alaska governor campaigned for tea party conservatives across the country even when they faced established Republican incumbents. Palin has earned the same reputation this cycle and already saw one major candidate she endorsed, Richard Mourdock, achieve victory in Indiana.

Sarah Palin was the first to recognize the problem: By participating in President Obama’s signature education initiative, the Common Core Standards, Alaska would lose control over its own curriculum.

On May 31, 2009, then-Gov. Palin announced Alaska would adopt a “watch and wait” attitude:

“If this initiative produces useful results, Alaska will remain free to incorporate them,” Gov. Palin said, adding that “high expectations are not always created by new, mandated federal standards written on paper. They are created in the home, the community and the classroom.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to his credit, was the next to recognize a federal boondoggle when he saw one: “I will not commit Texas taxpayers to unfunded federal obligations or to the adoption of unproven, cost-prohibitive national standards and tests,” Gov. Perry wrote in a Jan. 13, 2010, letter to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

In the ensuing two years, it’s become clear that Perry and Palin — two core conservative figures whose intelligence is routinely mocked by liberal “sophisticates” — were brilliantly prescient, indeed prophetic.

Common Core Standards turn out to be like Obamacare — you don’t really know what’s in it until after you pass it and are mired in its tentacles.

Today, even more states are waking up to discover that they have lost control of both curriculum and costs for a program that is untested and unlikely to improve student performance. A February study by the Pioneer Institute conservatively estimates that Obama’s Common Core Standards will costs the states at least $16 billion — money that could be used to promote education in other ways (pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/120222_CCSSICost.pdf).

This past week, Education Week’s blog published a review of criticism for Obama’s Common Core initiative. The shocking thing is how many liberals are now acknowledging Common Core comes at a high cost for little or no return. Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution, for example, wrote, “(T)he most reasonable prediction is that the Common Core will have little to no effect on student achievement.” Joanne Yatvin, a past president of the National Council on Teachers of English, writes, “Taken together, the standards and the criteria project an aura of arrogance and ignorance in their assumptions about how and why children learn.”

Four education experts came together at the Heritage Foundation on April 17 to comment on more problems emerging with the Common Core Standards. A blog post describing the expert panel, titled “Why States Should Hop Off the National Standards Bandwagon,” states:

“When ‘states signed on to Common Core Standards, they did not realize … that they were transferring control of the school curriculum to the federal government,’ explained Sandra Stotsky, 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality at the University of Arkansas’ Department of Education Reform.

“Theodor Rebarber, CEO and founder of AccountabilityWorks, explained, ‘States did almost no cost analysis’ when they signed on to adopt the Common Core Standards, although Rebarber noted, the Pioneer Institute report he authored conservatively estimated the overall national cost for implementing Common Core at a hefty $16 billion.

“Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute warned that the standards create ‘a disincentive to innovators long term.’ Federal involvement in curriculum, as attorney Kent Talbert of Talbert and Eitel explained, may even be illegal because three federal laws prohibit ‘federal direction, control or supervision of curricula, programs of instruction and instructional materials … in the elementary and secondary school arena.'”

Patrick Richardson wrote on The Daily Caller today ( h/tp C4P) about the latest intrusion of the Obama administration into family life:

The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.

[…]

The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

If I Wanted America to Fail, I’d Ban Kids From Farm Work

The Obama Administration is working on regulations that would prevent children from working on our own family farms. This is more overreach of the federal government with many negative consequences. And if you think the government’s new regs will stop at family farms, think again.

My family is a commercial fishing family, and commercial fishing in Alaska is much like the family farm (but the year ’round farmers no doubt work harder than we do!). I guarantee fishing families wouldn’t stand for this nonsensical intrusion into our lives and livelihoods, and, as a former 4-H member, I don’t believe farm families will either. Our kids learn to work and to help feed America on our nation’s farms, and out on the water.

Federal government: get your own house in order and stop interfering in ours.